NEW ORLEANS, LA – The Sierra
Club, Christian Ministers Missionary Baptist Association of Plaquemines, and
Louisiana Environmental Action Network are challenging the Louisiana Department
of Environmental Quality’s approval of a Clean Air Act permit for a proposed
coal export terminal in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The Armstrong Coal
Company, based in St. Louis, Missouri, intends to develop a new terminal that
would ship up to 10 million tons of coal per year through the Mississippi
Delta. The proposed terminal could cause serious environmental and public
health impacts, exposing the residents of the historic community of Ironton and
other nearby towns to coal dust and toxic runoff. In addition, the proposed terminal would
impair state-wide efforts to restore Louisiana’s coastline by directly
interfering with a major wetland restoration project.

“When IMT (an existing coal
terminal) came in, they destroyed two cemeteries, the oldest church around
here, and moved the entire community of Oak Park. As long as God leaves breath
in my body, I’m not going to let another coal company destroy another Black
community in Plaquemines,” said Ironton native and Louisiana Environmental
Action Network member Rose Jackson.

The proposed terminal would be
located approximately a mile from Ironton, a historic small town founded by
freed slaves after the Civil War.
Ironton is already facing problems from air and water pollution from
surrounding industrial facilities, which include an oil refinery and two
existing coal terminals. The citizens of Ironton had no opportunity to voice
their concerns to the local agencies before the air permit was granted, as it
was issued without public notice and comment.

“We should have been informed; the
state should have gotten our opinion. Think about the children and elderly
people who will have to breathe this coal dust— I feel like they wouldn’t do
this to any other community but Ironton,” said Pastor Haywood Johnson of St.
Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Ironton.

In addition to the threats it
poses to public health, the proposed RAM Terminal would impair the local
wetland ecosystem, as it would be located directly adjacent to the LCA Medium
Diversion, a project that the State of Louisiana has determined to be vital to
the state-wide wetland restoration plan. Both the U.S National Marine Fisheries
Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have offered public
comment that the proposed RAM Terminal would interfere with the wetlands
restoration project. Furthermore, coal export terminals are especially risky
for Southern Louisiana, where sea-level rise and hurricanes routinely lead to
toxic pollution and spills from low-lying industrial facilities.

“Hurricane Isaac showed how risky
coal exports are for Louisiana,” said Devin Martin of Sierra Club. “This is an
area where storm levees failed and that experienced devastating flooding. Coal
for export is kept in open-air piles, and after Hurricane Isaac, we saw coal
washed directly into the river and surrounding wetlands. Coal runoff contains
arsenic, mercury, and other toxic chemicals, and these toxics are going
directly into the water. It’s unfathomable that the Louisiana Department of
Environmental Quality is not considering these huge risks, and that the agency
rubber-stamped RAM’s air permit. Instead
of courting more coal terminals, state and local officials should focus on
restoring wetlands and strengthening storm protection for Plaquemines to help
prevent future flooding and accidents.”

For more information on the
recent spills from existing coal facilities during Hurricane Isaac, please see
the Gulf Restoration Network’s reports
and aerial
images.